Language Redirect Indexing Prob.

[soia15]

Hi All,

I have a website in 3 languages and once you come to the homepage it recognizes your browser language settings and redirects you to the appropriate language.
Ex
.com/en/home.php
.com/de/home.php
.com/es/home.php

My problem is that the SE's are not getting past the top domain and therefore not indexing my other pages. Also when I run a spider simulator it actually follows links that do not exist, for example:

.com/getthere.php which should be .com/en/getthere.com or .com/es/getthere.php etc..

Any expert out there than can give some advice as why is this happening?

Thanks

[incrediblehelp]

Why not simplify this and allow the user to select a language, similar to what www.kelkoo.com does.

[soia15]

not really what I have in mind, but I did think about it. I've seen others that have the same redirect and think they dont have the same problem. There has to be a solution.

[bhartzer]

I have a website in 3 languages

That's your problem. I always recommend keeping it to one language per domain (or subdomain if necessary).

I've never seen a site rank well in all three languages when their site is in three languages.

I'd like to point you to this article about multi-lingual considerations.

[soia15]

Again, thanks but no the answer I'm looking for, but I'm very thankful. The article you pointed to and the discussion that followed is very interesting and had some of the answer why I don't follow the advice. But mainly I'm not ready to go with expense at the moment . Also the co.uk domain that would be interesting is only available to companies in the Uk and I believe is the same thing for the German domain .de

My problem is just the indexing, the rest keywords and so on I think I will be ok as I'm fluent in all three languages. So I believe I can do the research in all three.

Actually it seems that now most of my pages have been indexed in Spanish and German but the english website. Don't know what is going on.

[incrediblehelp]

But Bill's point is there and I agree. I have only seen websites that either were hosted in the country targeted or have their own country based TLD do well in the search results. Have you considered this?

Sure your question is more along the lines of how can I get the spiders to follow through and index all language versions of the website, but have you consider the two ideas above?

[soia15]

I have, one is definitively too expensive and out of my reach. To own either a co.uk domain you need to have a business registered in the UK and I believe is the same for the German domain .de . Now the other option you mentioned ( where the user picks the language ) I will use it as a last resort....

[bhartzer]

soia15, why don't you go ahead and set up a subdomain for each language on your existing site. That way you can put your main page in English and offer the other users to go to a subdomain on your site.

That way you should be able to get the subdomains indexed just find and it won't cost you anything (setting up a subdomain shouldn't cost you anything.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by bhartzer

soia15, why don't you go ahead and set up a subdomain for each language on your existing site. That way you can put your main page in English and offer the other users to go to a subdomain on your site.

That way you should be able to get the subdomains indexed just find and it won't cost you anything (setting up a subdomain shouldn't cost you anything.

Bill have you seen success in websites ranking in different language search engines using this technique? I always recommend at least hosting or having a TLD in the language targeted.

[bhartzer]

have you seen success

Yes, I have seen some success. But again, the subdomain alternative is only an alternative for someone who cannot spend any money.

I certainly would prefer to spend the $10 on a domain name and $10 a month on web hosting for an additional domain and keep it one language per domain.